Now featuring dual-wielded weapons like the sickles and heavy weapons like the sledgehammer, the melee system has been completely revamped with a perk system that helps you flesh out your playstyle. The new melee options, though, are just a good time all around. Whereas other character classes quickly become Zeke lunch at close range, the Vanguard is much more viable, even if the high risk/high reward involved might not be for everyone. It takes a bit of skill to get the hang of, as I learned from my many ill-advised dives into piles of zombies, but mastering it is a lot of fun and can be invaluable in keeping your team alive. As the name implies, the Vanguard is all about getting up in the enemies’ faces and comes equipped with an electric shield that you can use to charge through dozens of zombies or block pathways by turning yourself into a human barricade. I seriously cannot overstate how weird that felt, no matter how long I played I probably muttered something like “So we’re just not gonna use that scope, huh?” a dozen or so times per play session.Īftermath also adds some welcome changes to the sandbox in the form of an eighth character class called the Vanguard and some new melee weapon options, both of which succeed at evolving the close-ranged combat. For all the added immersion the first-person perspective gave me, I was pulled right out of it again when I found myself looking past my scope during combat. It’s especially weird since ADS already existed in World War Z on some weapons, like the sniper rifle, so it’s not like looking down scopes just isn’t something you ever did in third-person. Lots of guns have scopes, but instead of looking down them, you look down the side of the weapon, which feels very odd, clunky, and downright unsatisfying. The caveat here is that, for whatever reason, aiming down the sights of your weapons has been curiously left out of first-person mode. Nothing really stuck with me very long after I beat it, though, except maybe those flaming pits filled with dead zombies those might give me nightmares. It’s still good ol’ fashioned face-smashing fun with a few highlights, like when you have to guide and refuel a van through the streets of Rome while under constant undead assault. Aside from the new sights, sounds, and giant flaming pits filled with zombies, there isn’t much to distinguish Italy from other destinations. Rome is the more by-the-numbers of the two: it takes a well-known destination, gives it whatever the opposite of a facelift is, then lets you and your friends blast your way through it for a laugh. It’s rare to see it go beyond the roots of its very clear inspiration, and there’s not a whole lot of variety when it comes to the missions, the special zombies, or the weapons, but what is there works and is enough to fill the Left 4 Dead-shaped hole in all our hearts, for a little while at least. The best way to experience World War Z is to fire up your microphone and find yourself a four-person crew to play through its brief but fun campaign.

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